The present invention relates to a fine particle-containing body that contains a fine particle, a fine particle-containing body manufacturing method, a storage element, a semiconductor device and electronic equipment and relates, in particular, to a fine particle-containing body that employs a fine particle of a nanometer size.
In recent years, for example, a single electron transistor and a memory that contains a fine particle called a nanodot and nanocrystal in its gate insulator have been proposed as ultramicro electronic device that employs a fine particle of a nanometer size.
As a method for forming such a fine particle of, for example, an Si (silicon) fine particle for an electronic device, a method for depositing amorphous silicon on a silicon thermal oxide by means of an LPCVD (Low Pressure Chemical Vapor Deposition) apparatus, thereafter forming an Si microcrystal through an annealing process and further depositing a silicon oxide on the silicon thermal oxide where the Si microcrystal has been formed by a CVD (Chemical Vapor Deposition) method is proposed (refer to, for example, JP 2000-22005 A).
Moreover, as another method for forming a fine particle, a method for forming a thin film on a substrate by using CVD, vapor deposition, MBE (Molecular Beam Epitaxy) and the like and thereafter scaling down the thin film by using a fine processing technology of photolithography, etching and the like is proposed. According to the method, the fine particle is formed, and thereafter, an insulator layer is layered on it.
Moreover, as another method for forming a fine particle, a method for implanting metal ions into an insulator by ion implantation and condensing the implanted ions by heat treatment to form a metal particle is proposed.
However, the method of forming the Si microcrystal on the silicon thermal oxide through the annealing process, which repeats the process of depositing the silicon thermal oxide, therefore has a problem that much time is needed for manufacturing. Moreover, the method has a problem that the time and effort for the manufacturing increase because of the necessity of repeating many times the processes from the deposition of the silicon thermal oxide to the annealing in order to increase the surface density of the Si fine particles.
Moreover, the method of using the fine processing technology of etching and the like has a problem that it is extremely difficult to concurrently reduce the size of the fine particles and a distance between fine particles to the nanometer order.
On the other hand, the method of forming a fine particle in the insulator by the ion implantation method is able to comparatively easily form a fine particle of the nanometer size in an isolated state in the insulator. However, when fine particles are formed by the ion implantation method, it is general that a large number of interface states are generated at the interfaces between the fine particles and the insulator. Therefore, forming an elemental device by employing the insulator, in which the fine particles are formed, causes a problem that a prescribed performance cannot be obtained or the characteristics vary. For example, if a storage element is formed by employing the insulator in which the fine particles have been formed, electric charge leakage from the fine particles that should retain the electric charge easily occurs, and variations in the retention characteristics of the electric charges of the fine particles occur. As described above, the conventional methods for forming fine particles have a problem that it is uneasy to stably obtain a fine particle-containing body of satisfactory characteristics.